One of the things I'm most apprehensive about regarding teaching is classroom discipline. I'm not very menacing and am a bit tiny. I wish there was a class through the education college that focused on HOW to maintain discipline without being a total tyrant and making your students hate you. I've had teachers who were naturally brilliant at keeping students under control, and they did it respectfully and without a lot of effort, or so I thought. Anyway, I found a website (part of the cheesy about.com) that links to several secondary school classroom discipline resources and how-to's. Some may speak more to your interests and tastes and style than others, but they are worth a look. The site is http://712educators.about.com/od/discipline/tp/disciplinetips.htm, but hilariously enough my MAC won't let me do the link. I don't have the link button and control-shift-a doesn't work, either. Ha ha! I'll make the link work tomorrow on a PC. Phooey.
P.S. I heart my Mac!!! I really do!
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2 comments:
I share your same concerns about discipline and wanted to thank you for the link...I made a copy of the top ten tips from the discussions and will make it a point to review it weekly! Many of the ideas are things we've talked about in classes or that you just "know" about discipline ie. fairness, consistency, but sometimes just need to be reminded about...especially right before one of those classes where you feel challenged about maintaining control.
In this area, my question has always been about the difference between a well managed classroom and a quiet one. It seems they are often confused. I believe that at times a quiet classroom is simply one in which the teacher is feared or as you said,hated. Lack of engagement is quiet and sometimes engagement is loud and includes movement! If someone (principal, administrator, parent, peer) walks in at a moment where we're "in motion" I sometimes feel like I'm being judged as not in control of the class. Paranoid probably but that's how it feels! Is that maybe part of your concern?
One source that may be of help to you if you haven't already read it through one of your ed. classes is a book called, "The First Days" by Wong. He has great practical ideas for organization and discipline that have been helpful.
Thanks for your post, it got me thinking in a different way about this topic which has been in the forefront of my first two years of teaching experience!
Sorry, I had to keep going here because I realized once I looked at my post it didn't have all of the information I was thinking about while I read your original post.
When I mentioned engagement and movement I wanted to pose the thought/question that active learning, as Gee discusses it and I interpret that discussion, is sometimes just that...active. Not sitting quietly at one's dest with a book out and a worksheet to complete. It sometimes requires innovation that reaches beyond what a "well behaved - on task" class looks like when we picture one in our minds.
If students need to be out of the class, creating videos, looking things up on the internet, exploring something in a three dimensional way, discipline takes on a different "look" and "feel." Maybe we need to re-think the well managed classroom at the same time that we re-think the ways in which we engage students!
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